A wide variety of removable storage media exists for transferring data from one device to another device. The removable storage media allows users to easily transport data between various devices and various computers. One of the most popular types of removable storage media is the flash memory drive, which is compact, easy to use, and has no moving parts. A flash memory drive includes an internal, high-speed solid-state memory capable of persistently storing data without the application of power.
Numerous other memory standards can also be used in memory drives, including electrically-erasable-programmable-read-only-memory (EEPROM), non-volatile random-access-memory (NVRAM), micro hard disk drives, and other non-volatile or volatile memory types, such as synchronous dynamic random-access-memory (SDRAM), with battery backup. A wide variety of memory drives have been recently introduced, each having different capacities, access speeds, formats, interfaces, and connectors.
Memory drives generally include a specialized connector for coupling to a computing device. For example, a memory drive connector may couple to a host computer via a host computer interface, such as a personal computer memory card international association (PCMCIA) interface including a 16 bit standard PC Card interface and a 32 bit standard CardBus interface, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, a Universal Serial Bus 2 (USB2) interface, a future generation USB interface, an IEEE 1394 FireWire interface, a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) interface, an Advance Technology Attachment (ATA) interface, a serial ATA interface, an Integrated Device Electronic (IDE) interface, an Enhanced Integrated Device Electronic (EIDE) interface, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interface, a PCI Express interface, a conventional serial or parallel interface, or another interface that facilitates attachment to a host computer.
Existing memory drives may include one or more memory storage units that define a fixed storage capacity of the device, which generally cannot be expanded. If higher storage capacity is needed, a user may need to purchase a new memory device with a larger, fixed storage capacity. However, there will always be some storage capacity limit in storage media devices that conform to a specific physical format. For example, many flash memory drives currently have an upper capacity limit of approximately 2 gigabytes (GB) because the small physical format of the flash memory drive allows for only one flash memory chip. If a user wants to use a higher capacity flash drive, the user would typically have to purchase a larger, bulky drive, which typically sells at a more expensive price.